Yea, LLMs are just glorified search engines; they just combine multiple results from different places into a singular piece of text, based simply on a language model. It doesn't analyze the veracity of the information.

If the information from those places is correct, then the LLM result can be ok. If there's inaccurate or wrong information in the sources, then the final result would be nonsense. There's basically no intelligence involved.

This reminded me of that LLM based post on vogons of "OpenGL games with MIDI", where IINM not a single one was OGL. The release dates of the games were way before the release date of OGL, but of course the "AI" has no ability to check that.

EDIT:

I suspect when the result is challenged by a user, the LLM simply adds that to the model, but again, it's not verifying that information.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-12-12, 01:54:

For example... say I am physically holding onto an NV1 card (sound and video on one card) and I'm curious if more things like th […]
Show full quote

For example... say I am physically holding onto an NV1 card (sound and video on one card) and I'm curious if more things like this exist, OR, I see a picture of such a card and I have no idea what it is. So I search for: pci vga sound combo card

Google's AI answer says:

A "PCI VGA Sound VGA Combo Card" isn't a standard product name, but it refers to older expansion cards for PCs that integrated both VGA graphics (video) and audio (sound) onto a single PCI slot card, common in the late 90s/early 2000s for basic multimedia PCs, especially for retro gaming or industrial systems needing integrated solutions where space or slots were limited. These cards, often by brands like Jaton or Creative, provided basic video (e.g., 8MB, 1280x1024) and sound (like 4-channel AC97) to avoid needing separate cards, though dedicated cards offered better quality.

Okay... well. Let's try different wording.

My Google AI says this:

The "PCI VGA sound combo card" is a very specific and rare type of hardware. In the vast majority of PC history, graphics (VGA) […]
Show full quote

The "PCI VGA sound combo card" is a very specific and rare type of hardware. In the vast majority of PC history, graphics (VGA) and sound were handled by separate cards or separate chips on the motherboard.
However, there is one famous historical example that fits this description exactly, along with a few technical caveats.
The Primary Example: Chromatic Research Mpact
...
If you are not referring to the Mpact specifically, you might be encountering one of these situations:
Cyrix MediaGX System Boards: The Cyrix MediaGX was a CPU that integrated graphics and sound directly into the processor...
Modern Graphics Cards (HDMI/DP): Technically, almost all modern PCI Express graphics cards are "sound combo cards."...
Industrial/Single Board Computers (SBCs): In industrial computing, there are "Slot 1" or "PICMG" cards that look like massive PCI cards...

When I ask it for a list of cards like the Mpact:

1. Chromatic Research Mpact (The "Media Processor") ... 2. NVIDIA NV1 (Diamond Edge 3D) ... 3. VideoLogic Apocalypse 5D Sonic .. […]
Show full quote

1. Chromatic Research Mpact (The "Media Processor") ...
2. NVIDIA NV1 (Diamond Edge 3D) ...
3. VideoLogic Apocalypse 5D Sonic ...
4. Jazz Multimedia Jakarta ...
5. Oak Technology OTI-64111 "Spitfire" ...

Also, one thing I find a bit unsettling is that when I search for things on Google, I am starting to see the AI answers sprinkled with references to things I have searched for in the past... as if it's trying to make connections that will appeal to me. The problem is, the connections are sometimes imaginary, and yet it will seriously struggle to make very very clear and well documented connections like the NV1 stuff mentioned earlier.

For me it isn't a huge issue because most of the stuff I look for is related to old computers, troubleshooting software problems, random historical facts or maybe home repairs. I do not rely on Google's AI for the answers to those things, but at least whatever the AI generates to try to appeal to me is not all the important to how I live my life.

I can only imagine what it's like for people with mental, emotional or health issues... it used to be you'd google stuff and have to vet the sources and be careful what you read. People who were inexperienced, gullible or otherwise vulnerable would at least have to click a link and get duped by a website. Now, this ever-present "friend" is jumping in your face before you can even do research yourself, and they are claiming to have all the answers, often with an air of "any alternate ideas you may have are likely incorrect" .

Anyway... weird stuff. People can do whatever they want with their families, but I personally don't let my kid (tween) have unrestricted access even to search engines (in addition to social media) anymore because of stuff like this. She's happy and well rounded, has real friends, rides a bike, roller-blades, reads tons of real paper books that we get from the library, produces more artwork (both physical and digital) than our home can contain, builds models (of Transformers... 🤣), dabbles in programming her own games, has recently started writing her own books (without AI!?!), spends tons of time with us, works hard in school and only uses a cell phone to text friends and take pictures.

It's almost kind of like a person, even of her generation, can function quite well without all this corporate run targeted garbage jammed into their brain 24\7.

She can handle it how she wants when she's older, but there's no reason to stunt all these good things in these formative years by having Google, Meta and others use billions of dollars worth of tech infrastructure to figure out the best way to get into her head. So disturbing.

What are you using to turn off or filter out AI results?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addo … itify-searches/
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/pre- … fpnlokckb?pli=1
Whatever you search and add text before:2020 (or some other year you like)

marxveix wrote on 2025-12-12, 10:23:

What are you using to turn off or filter out AI results?

I've been using the udm=14 trick on Google for months now and it's been great.

badmojo wrote on 2025-12-12, 11:14:

marxveix wrote on 2025-12-12, 10:23:

What are you using to turn off or filter out AI results?

I've been using the udm=14 trick on Google for months now and it's been great.

Thanks, there is also AI-overview-free Google search at https://udm14.com/

it doesn't surprise me that there is some reflected mimicry of 'llm speak' in people's online postings, many use LLMs to write or edit posts anyway.

StriderTR wrote on 2025-12-10, 08:15:

Problem is, with so called "AI" doing all the work, people wont bother learning the proper way of doing those things.

Mostly, to become good at something, you must first be bad, then mediocre, then above average then good

AI short circuits straight to mediocre. If you can formulate sufficient meaning in a prompt you'll get something mediocre but useful back.

This removes the need to jump the first few hurdles in learning, and robs the person of the experience of being bad or wrong, of what if took to improve and the kind of experience and thinking that gives someone sufficient thinking skill to know when an 'answer' is contradictory or suspect.

The effect may be to reduce the total number of people who share the formative experience of having to develop skills and reasoning in pursuit of some goal

zyzzle wrote on 2025-12-10, 01:11:

Revisionist history doesn't even begin to describe the sense of unreality of the future.

That's why I hang on tightly to my home library of over 10,000 volumes -- all of which were written by real people, most of whom were great scholars who cared about and treaded carefully with their material. There's a reason it used to take 6 months (at least) to get published - proofreaders, fact checkers, professionals who peer-reviewed your book before it was in print. These things matter -- and all have now been chucked out into the abyss like some worthless rubbish. Sad but true in this AI age.

Its good that you do, and i say the same for collectors of all books, records, films etc.

However imagine a water droplet against a tsunami, that is the proportional difference. anecdotally just look at the most popular / viral social media, look at the total clicks AI generated stuff is getting. Then compare that to the attention that more guarded observers get, collectors of books, optical media, those who speak about preservation - whatever. Sure it looks like a big scene from the inside, but step out and it looks like some tiny typewriter collector club in an era of voice recognition.

And i am constantly surprised by those who don't care about or understate concerns about the AI generated revision of past.

At one level its those photos that merge you back into the group as if someone else took the pic, the result is a picture of something that isn't an actual event. I've seen videos of someone apparently speaking in English with accent, with perhaps something slightly off about how the mouth formed the English words - indeed it was generated in the persons voice, translated, and video AI edited to make it look English. It is a fabrication. The same will almost certainly happen in tv and films.

As example and in greater effect, it will be easy to not just edit out some scene in a movie, but to edit the scene itself - replace the visuals and dialog, sound, to suit some idea, to such an extent that you won't even realise it if you didn't know the original. In the end maybe even everything that is culture will be generated - all songs, films/tv, books, art - all generated on the fly at individual whim/prompt then forgotten just as quickly, an experience unshared, isolated, leaving no cultural impression.

gerry wrote on 2025-12-12, 16:04:

In the end maybe even everything that is culture will be generated - all songs, films/tv, books, art - all generated on the fly at individual whim/prompt then forgotten just as quickly, an experience unshared, isolated, leaving no cultural impression.

I appreciate this whole post, but this part in particular made me think of something that isn't really AI related but fits very well with the way things are going. Namely, that the missed opportunities for game preservation will become apparent in the coming years, and people are going to say "oops, I guess that's gone forever now". There are so many game experiences that require something external that cannot be emulated or even downloaded and saved for later... whether it be deliberately installed DRM, game hosting\matchmaking servers, streamed content, DLC that (ironically) cannot just be downloaded but requires an account, user-made content or mods that are hosted by the game developer\publisher and cannot be accessed anymore. Or how about games on Steam or other platforms that get abandoned? Sometimes they are outright removed from the servers, at which point they are GONE. At best you can hope that they are able to be run without communicating with Steam and that you or someone else still has the files...

This stuff is just so sad from a preservation standpoint.

About eight years ago I picked up multiple boxes of 5 1/4 floppies from a guy and among them were several dozen numbered disks filled with archives of stuff downloaded from various BBSs in the 80s and 90s. There were (extremely simple) games and programs that may or may not exist anywhere online in 2025, but assuming the disks were readable, I was able to get them and make copies of them. I was able to recover stuff from probably a good 70% of the disks, despite them being stored either in hot attic or wet basement (maybe both).

What is the modern equivalent? Hardly anyone uses physical media, so stuff won't be found on disks or flash drives. Maybe hard drives or SSDs? Sadly, most of the stuff won't let you just use it if you find it on an old drive. Also, a lot of laptops and nearly all mobile phones\tablets primarily use non-removable storage, so are at the mercy of battery life. Okay, so maybe internet archives or downloads? Well, no. Soooo much of the content that people entertain themselves with these days is only available in isolated proprietary apps and is not available on any website that can be accessed, downloaded or backed up.

The only logical solution I can come up with for this is kind of sad, but... if one wants to be able to relive experiences again some day, you'd be best off just focusing on entertainment\experiences that you have some kind of control over. Don't get me wrong, I will play a game with online servers, and I have a huge collection on Steam, Epic and other places, but when I see that a game is DRM free or is at least downloadable, I attribute a higher value to it.

A good example is Minecraft Java. I have hosted Minecraft servers on and off for like 12 years and I still have the worlds that me and my friends\relatives built, along with the game files and mods that can easily just be dumped into a folder on a system with a compatible Java version and it will just work. Yes, it does require online authentication for players normally... but I believe people have already found ways around that, so even if the "best" version of the most popular video game of all time eventually gets shut down, people will still have a way to play it.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are some really cool games that were put on Steam and required connecting to online servers to play. I played them for a while. Sometime later, I find out that the servers shut down and... that's it. You might as well delete the game files and forget about it because the servers will never come back, no one has the means of bringing them back and the game cannot function without them. Very sad.

gerry wrote on 2025-12-12, 16:04:

it doesn't surprise me that there is some reflected mimicry of 'llm speak' in people's online postings, many use LLMs to write o […]
Show full quote

it doesn't surprise me that there is some reflected mimicry of 'llm speak' in people's online postings, many use LLMs to write or edit posts anyway.

StriderTR wrote on 2025-12-10, 08:15:

Problem is, with so called "AI" doing all the work, people wont bother learning the proper way of doing those things.

Mostly, to become good at something, you must first be bad, then mediocre, then above average then good

AI short circuits straight to mediocre. If you can formulate sufficient meaning in a prompt you'll get something mediocre but useful back.

This removes the need to jump the first few hurdles in learning, and robs the person of the experience of being bad or wrong, of what if took to improve and the kind of experience and thinking that gives someone sufficient thinking skill to know when an 'answer' is contradictory or suspect.

The effect may be to reduce the total number of people who share the formative experience of having to develop skills and reasoning in pursuit of some goal

Yep. I'm not saying you can't gain knowledge or learn something using AI tools, you most certainly can. Though, current iterations of AI get a lot of things wrong, so always verify the info you're getting is accurate, modern AI is just machine learning, and it can learn (or be told) wrong. However, it does rob you of experience. Knowledge and experience go hand in hand, but they're also two different things. You can have more of one than the other and fuddle your way through a task, but having both will always make you better at any task.

Reminds me of school, teachers always wanting you to "show your work". This wasn't just to make sure you weren't cheating, it was primarily to prove you know how to do the work. That you understand the fundamentals.

I rarely get a reasonable-sounding answer from LLMs, and when I do, it's written like a wild guess with low confidence, even from a huge company's own AI help tool trained on its own products. The rest is either hallucinations or bad advice.

It really annoys me to see randomly bolded text in nonsensical areas where emphasis shouldn't be applied and lists using ✅green ✅check ✅mark ✅icons instead of bullet points.

I hope nobody thinks that my posts are LLM-generated instead of being written by someone who is half-asleep and went to school in the "we need more art in school, so let's turn English into a second art class and blame the sudden drop in literacy rates on cell phones" era. Some of the stuff I write really looks like shit the next day.

Self-appointed social media moderators "vibe guessing" the humanity of posts is itself not exactly a robust standard to aspire to.

The large downside of targeting a writing style is that AI's style originated from people who have systematic, verbose-yet-clear approaches to written communication. Demonising such writing styles is an own goal of a kind - 'baby out with the bathwater', and all that.

AI is like taking the type of guy who isn't actually very smart but thinks he's smart because he can regurgitate a lot of stuff he read online, duplicating him millions of times, and spamming his posts all over the whole internet.

This topic went in interesting directions.

I recently graduated into the top ranks of the United State Air Force Auxiliary; during my education through that process I wrote a couple papers on how technological advancement past a certain point is always a double-edged blade. On the philosophical side (you may disagree) human beings need to work to be able to support themselves and find vocational meaning thus such should not be replaced by machines. On the practical side it goes to application of skills we cannot afford to allow to stagnate.

But there is another, perhaps more hazardous aspect I also covered. What my papers focused on specifically was our growing use of systems dependent on functioning connections to the internet, AI, telecommunications, and other tools dependent on the continued stability of outside infrastructure. I advocated that, while the new tools can be faster and more effective, training must not abandon older methods because we need to be ready to maintain mission effectiveness should that outside infrastructure fail.

In general society this is even more critical. Much dystopia fiction has explored the prospect of machines becoming too intelligent and turning on humanity, but what about the reverse: that people and business in general allow themselves to become too dependent on these infrastructure-based systems with too little accounting for contingency? If people wholesale lose the skills (or are denied the access) necessary to step up and take the place of machines that fail, can you begin to imagine the scale of socioeconomic disaster?

chinny22 wrote on 2025-12-10, 01:06:

The other annoying thing is I know a few people that will pad out work emails or the like with AI generated text. which is somewhat amusing as on the other end people use AI to summarise the email (so take out the padding)

The world wonders.

Recently at work I was filling in at the customer service point. An older gentleman came in saying the e-mail address he had been given to contact the office manager was not working. Well apparently his first course of action was to consult the all-knowing oracle "AI". After a great many offerings (you know, boiling the oceans) the wonderful wizard provided him nothing but garbage. I went to speak with the manager who asked me to stress to the gentleman the necessity of the periods in the address. Oh, no he had typed it all as one word. I found the faith he placed in it quite terrifying.

Here's the thing about the 'generative arts': the act of self-expression requires introspection. If you are incapable or unwilling to engage in that, aren't the NPC memes true? Homo Sapiens becomes Homo Sloppians.

Yes I put on my resume I speak Alexa, Gemini, GPT. It is a good skill to speak AI(-ish). You cannot mumble, you have to speak slowly and distinctly. Though I have been experimenting by feeding it leetspeak and shorthand.

BaronSFel001 wrote on 2025-12-12, 21:43:

This topic went in interesting directions. […]
Show full quote

This topic went in interesting directions.

I recently graduated into the top ranks of the United State Air Force Auxiliary; during my education through that process I wrote a couple papers on how technological advancement past a certain point is always a double-edged blade. On the philosophical side (you may disagree) human beings need to work to be able to support themselves and find vocational meaning thus such should not be replaced by machines. On the practical side it goes to application of skills we cannot afford to allow to stagnate.

But there is another, perhaps more hazardous aspect I also covered. What my papers focused on specifically was our growing use of systems dependent on functioning connections to the internet, AI, telecommunications, and other tools dependent on the continued stability of outside infrastructure. I advocated that, while the new tools can be faster and more effective, training must not abandon older methods because we need to be ready to maintain mission effectiveness should that outside infrastructure fail.

In general society this is even more critical. Much dystopia fiction has explored the prospect of machines becoming too intelligent and turning on humanity, but what about the reverse: that people and business in general allow themselves to become too dependent on these infrastructure-based systems with too little accounting for contingency? If people wholesale lose the skills (or are denied the access) necessary to step up and take the place of machines that fail, can you begin to imagine the scale of socioeconomic disaster?

Yes, that is exactly what is going to happen. Humanity cannot evolve fast enough, and if there is no evolution there must be revolution. We destroyed a thousand ecosystems in our quest for domination. Electronic Life Forms (ELFs)

keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-12-12, 21:14:

AI is like taking the type of guy who isn't actually very smart but thinks he's smart because he can regurgitate a lot of stuff he read online, duplicating him millions of times, and spamming his posts all over the whole internet.

to be fair, in high school we were taught rote responses, thinking we were smart but not applying what we learned and just sheer memorization

dr_st wrote on 2025-12-09, 17:14:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-12-09, 12:32:

As Nietzsche so eloquently said: "If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."

In Soviet Russia, if the abyss gazes long enough into you, you also gaze into the abyss!

except you dont build character, only data sets

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-12-12, 16:36:

I appreciate this whole post, but this part in particular made me think of something that isn't really AI related but fits very […]
Show full quote

gerry wrote on 2025-12-12, 16:04:

In the end maybe even everything that is culture will be generated - all songs, films/tv, books, art - all generated on the fly at individual whim/prompt then forgotten just as quickly, an experience unshared, isolated, leaving no cultural impression.

I appreciate this whole post, but this part in particular made me think of something that isn't really AI related but fits very well with the way things are going. Namely, that the missed opportunities for game preservation will become apparent in the coming years, and people are going to say "oops, I guess that's gone forever now". There are so many game experiences that require something external that cannot be emulated or even downloaded and saved for later... whether it be deliberately installed DRM, game hosting\matchmaking servers, streamed content, DLC that (ironically) cannot just be downloaded but requires an account, user-made content or mods that are hosted by the game developer\publisher and cannot be accessed anymore. Or how about games on Steam or other platforms that get abandoned? Sometimes they are outright removed from the servers, at which point they are GONE. At best you can hope that they are able to be run without communicating with Steam and that you or someone else still has the files...

This stuff is just so sad from a preservation standpoint.

About eight years ago I picked up multiple boxes of 5 1/4 floppies from a guy and among them were several dozen numbered disks filled with archives of stuff downloaded from various BBSs in the 80s and 90s. There were (extremely simple) games and programs that may or may not exist anywhere online in 2025, but assuming the disks were readable, I was able to get them and make copies of them. I was able to recover stuff from probably a good 70% of the disks, despite them being stored either in hot attic or wet basement (maybe both).

What is the modern equivalent? Hardly anyone uses physical media, so stuff won't be found on disks or flash drives. Maybe hard drives or SSDs? Sadly, most of the stuff won't let you just use it if you find it on an old drive. Also, a lot of laptops and nearly all mobile phones\tablets primarily use non-removable storage, so are at the mercy of battery life. Okay, so maybe internet archives or downloads? Well, no. Soooo much of the content that people entertain themselves with these days is only available in isolated proprietary apps and is not available on any website that can be accessed, downloaded or backed up.

The only logical solution I can come up with for this is kind of sad, but... if one wants to be able to relive experiences again some day, you'd be best off just focusing on entertainment\experiences that you have some kind of control over. Don't get me wrong, I will play a game with online servers, and I have a huge collection on Steam, Epic and other places, but when I see that a game is DRM free or is at least downloadable, I attribute a higher value to it.

A good example is Minecraft Java. I have hosted Minecraft servers on and off for like 12 years and I still have the worlds that me and my friends\relatives built, along with the game files and mods that can easily just be dumped into a folder on a system with a compatible Java version and it will just work. Yes, it does require online authentication for players normally... but I believe people have already found ways around that, so even if the "best" version of the most popular video game of all time eventually gets shut down, people will still have a way to play it.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are some really cool games that were put on Steam and required connecting to online servers to play. I played them for a while. Sometime later, I find out that the servers shut down and... that's it. You might as well delete the game files and forget about it because the servers will never come back, no one has the means of bringing them back and the game cannot function without them. Very sad.

Preservation means nothing if you dont own all of it. Minecraft worlds sure you own them but without minecraft you cannot reasonably back them up in a format that will last a thousand years.

twiz11 wrote on 2025-12-13, 00:26:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-12-12, 16:36:

I appreciate this whole post, but this part in particular made me think of something that isn't really AI related but fits very […]
Show full quote

gerry wrote on 2025-12-12, 16:04:

In the end maybe even everything that is culture will be generated - all songs, films/tv, books, art - all generated on the fly at individual whim/prompt then forgotten just as quickly, an experience unshared, isolated, leaving no cultural impression.

I appreciate this whole post, but this part in particular made me think of something that isn't really AI related but fits very well with the way things are going. Namely, that the missed opportunities for game preservation will become apparent in the coming years, and people are going to say "oops, I guess that's gone forever now". There are so many game experiences that require something external that cannot be emulated or even downloaded and saved for later... whether it be deliberately installed DRM, game hosting\matchmaking servers, streamed content, DLC that (ironically) cannot just be downloaded but requires an account, user-made content or mods that are hosted by the game developer\publisher and cannot be accessed anymore. Or how about games on Steam or other platforms that get abandoned? Sometimes they are outright removed from the servers, at which point they are GONE. At best you can hope that they are able to be run without communicating with Steam and that you or someone else still has the files...

This stuff is just so sad from a preservation standpoint.

About eight years ago I picked up multiple boxes of 5 1/4 floppies from a guy and among them were several dozen numbered disks filled with archives of stuff downloaded from various BBSs in the 80s and 90s. There were (extremely simple) games and programs that may or may not exist anywhere online in 2025, but assuming the disks were readable, I was able to get them and make copies of them. I was able to recover stuff from probably a good 70% of the disks, despite them being stored either in hot attic or wet basement (maybe both).

What is the modern equivalent? Hardly anyone uses physical media, so stuff won't be found on disks or flash drives. Maybe hard drives or SSDs? Sadly, most of the stuff won't let you just use it if you find it on an old drive. Also, a lot of laptops and nearly all mobile phones\tablets primarily use non-removable storage, so are at the mercy of battery life. Okay, so maybe internet archives or downloads? Well, no. Soooo much of the content that people entertain themselves with these days is only available in isolated proprietary apps and is not available on any website that can be accessed, downloaded or backed up.

The only logical solution I can come up with for this is kind of sad, but... if one wants to be able to relive experiences again some day, you'd be best off just focusing on entertainment\experiences that you have some kind of control over. Don't get me wrong, I will play a game with online servers, and I have a huge collection on Steam, Epic and other places, but when I see that a game is DRM free or is at least downloadable, I attribute a higher value to it.

A good example is Minecraft Java. I have hosted Minecraft servers on and off for like 12 years and I still have the worlds that me and my friends\relatives built, along with the game files and mods that can easily just be dumped into a folder on a system with a compatible Java version and it will just work. Yes, it does require online authentication for players normally... but I believe people have already found ways around that, so even if the "best" version of the most popular video game of all time eventually gets shut down, people will still have a way to play it.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are some really cool games that were put on Steam and required connecting to online servers to play. I played them for a while. Sometime later, I find out that the servers shut down and... that's it. You might as well delete the game files and forget about it because the servers will never come back, no one has the means of bringing them back and the game cannot function without them. Very sad.

Preservation means nothing if you dont own all of it. Minecraft worlds sure you own them but without minecraft you cannot reasonably back them up in a format that will last a thousand years.

What? I do have Minecraft Java. The game works entirely from a folder that can be copied, zipped, put on another computer and played there. Again, you just need a compatible Java runtime and a way to either login or bypass the login (of which there are several).

The leap in logic from "I played this yesterday and now it is gone from the planet." to "I want civilizations a thousand years from now to play my Minecraft world." is so huge I don't even know what else to say. 😅